Sojourner's Article on Racism in the Catholic Church

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swamidass

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There was recently a controversy about an article published by Sojourners about racism and the Catholic Church. The editor Jim Wallis decided to pull this article. You can see the story here:


They called it a “retraction” but did not leave any links to the original version. You can see their note here:


Does anyone have the original version of the article? What are your thoughts on this exchange?
 
I have no desire to have anything to do with that organization after reading that editor’s wall of text (which I only got halfway through before giving up).

Sounds like the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing at that place.
 
Here’s the original article. The Internet, like rock n’ roll, never forgets.


I note that the article apparently does contain errors according to the editor who pulled it (for instance about the swastikas and nooses allegedly not being condemned when they actually were).

Here’s an additional side fact I personally know and have seen evidence of:
Back in the late 1800s or so, Georgetown University had its very own KKK chapter. It was only 3 guys but they took a picture which is in the school archives. I have seen it myself in a history class there, where it was discussed in class. Myself and another Catholic who saw it thought it was very ironic considering how much the KKK hated Catholics.
 
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The infamous Fr Coughlin had a stone crucifix built at the National Shrine of the Little Flower to ‘give the Klan a cross they can’t burn.’
 
Fr. Coughlin started out okay when he was just supporting FDR. He went off the rails only later on. He also had the good sense to shut up and sit down when his bishop finally told him to stop.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Here’s the original article. The Internet, like rock n’ roll, never forgets.
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Thank you.

I’m not a Catholic myself, but it seemed that article was judging Catholics by its worst examples (at least form the point of view of the unwaiveringly liberal Sojourners). That does not make much sense. A prominent flat-earther is a Catholic, but it would be absurd to criticize the church for “harboring” flat-earthers, as if that was a reasonable explanation of the church’s position.

This is just over the top:
The decision to avoid condemning swastikas, nooses, and Confederate flags would be troubling under any circumstances. But this moral failure is compounded by the fact that Catholics are among the most integral groups that rally behind these symbols. From the highest reaches of government to the lowest depths of social media, many members of hate groups and politicians who model their talking points are part of the bishops’ flock. Catholics not only contributed to the platform for the so-called alt-righters who terrorized Charlottesville and killed Heather Heyer but are leaders and even founders of the most dangerous neo-Nazi groups in existence.
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Following publication ethics though, this article should have been left online with a retraction notice, not vanished like this.

How do you think this article should have been managed by the editors?​

 
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I strongly suspect there were legal reasons why it was taken down, given that it apparently contains at least one glaring error, and the people they went after all have deep pockets. I don’t second-guess legal counsels.

A better question would be, how the heck did an inflammatory piece with a big error get published in the first place? Do they even have any fact checkers?
 
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That is not how this works. There are rules about this.

If there was an error of fact, you make a correction, leaving a correction notice to explain what was wrong in earlier versions and the date of correction. Even if the original statement was libelous, a quick correction protects the editors substantially. To undo damage further, a note from the editors apologizing for letting the error slip through in the next issue and on the website would resolve all legal issues.

If there was inflammatory content that was a matter of interpretation not fact, the editors could invite and publish response to the article,. They also could publish an apology.

What you cannot do is just delete the article.
Tis_Bearself said:
A better question would be, how the heck did an inflammatory piece with a big error get published in the first place? Do they even have any fact checkers?
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He blames COVID-19. Seriously. He does.
 
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swamidass said:
That is not how this works. There are rules about this.
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What do you mean? How do you know? Do you work there?

By the way, you’re not Catholic as you stated above. It’s a bit suspect that you seem to be so interested in an anti-Catholic article staying up on the web. What’s your interest in this?
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
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swamidass:
That is not how this works. There are rules about this.
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What do you mean? How do you know? Do you work there?
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I am a scientist that thinks publication ethics is important. In science, we put a lot of attention in how to deal with questions like this. You can see here the guidelines on retraction:

https://publicationethics.org/news/copes-retraction-guidelines-2019
Tis_Bearself said:
By the way, you’re not Catholic as you stated above. It’s a bit suspect that you seem to be so interested in an anti-Catholic article staying up on the web.
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Not at all. I’ve already stated that I think the article was unfair to Catholics. The retraction notice should say the same.

I would not have known this, however, if you hadn’t found the article for me. That’s important. Without seeing the article, the debate about it in the public square is severely damaged. The lack of transparency injures the editors of the journal, the author of the article, and also the subject of the article.

By putting it up, with a retraction that explains exactly what was wrong, it would have protected the reputation of Catholicism. The mismanagement is doing harm, with some people claiming behind the scenes machinations. That’s what happens when editors are not transparent.
 
I work with academics who publish on a regular basis. I have also in the past worked in journalism, have many friends who work in journalism and also friends who deal with legal issues pertaining to it.

Academic/ scientific publishing is very different from journalism. There are many differences. One is that academic/ scientific publishing is generally subject to more review, such as peer review, whereas journalism just uses a couple of editors and is much quicker to publish. Retractions and decisions to pull articles are also handled differently for a lot of reasons.

If this article had been subjected to any kind of decent review or editing, it would likely have either not been printed in the first place, or substantially revised before it appeared.

While you are entitled to your opinion, it doesn’t really fit to apply the standards for scientific publications to a daily/ monthly magazine targeting the public. Magazines and news outlets have a vastly different audience, purpose, manner of operation, and set of concerns than academic and scientific publications.

I couldn’t care less about debating a garbage article in the public square; we’re all on information overload thanks to the Internet, no one is going to be persuaded by anyone else’s biased opinion (on either side) at this point, and one bad article more or less that wasn’t doing any sort of big McCarrick-type reveal simply doesn’t matter that much. The article has the potential mostly to affect the Sojourners publication, organization and reputation; the Church will just keep lumbering on. So I suspect Sojourners was mostly motivated by their own self-interest.

When a publication tries to hide previously published information from me, my natural impulse is to go see if I can find what was so “bad” that they had to hide it. Streisand effect, they call it.
 
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The Church does have a poor history- especially in the US- regarding race.

A really great book is “From slave to priest” about Father Augustus Tolton the first African American priest. In it you learn about the ugly face of racism in the American Church at that time. Father Tolton did seem to find greater acceptance in Rome- where he went to seminary.

I do believe that the Catholic Church in America has done a pretty good job of addressing past sins and does seem to embrace diversity nowadays.

I believe- for instance- that the Church is doing a better job with race than the society at large.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Academic/ scientific publishing is very different from journalism.
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Yes there is, which is part of the reason I’m raising these questions, to clarify what the standards are in this case.
Tis_Bearself said:
While you are entitled to your opinion, it doesn’t really fit to apply the standards for scientific publications to a daily/ monthly magazine targeting the public.
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True, however, the basic values of truth-telling and transparency do apply. Perhaps there are other ways of executing these values.

It is also notable that Jim Wallis states he did not know how to manage this situation and that a retraction was unprecedented for this publication. That indicates they are in uncharted water and do not actually have policies governing this.

I know how it is handled in academics. We have clear rules on this, and he violated those rules. Though, as you note, the rules may not apply here. But what rules do apply? Certainly the current situation is not consistent with transparency.
 
We have had online publishing for such a short time that I am sure this is an instance of how the rules will be made rather than one of breaking rules.

I also think that the virus which has had so many of us working from home (if working!) may well have played a part because there was a reduction in casual interpersonal communications, one of the down-sides of working at home. If they had all been working in the office, they might well have picked up on the inappropriateness of such an article.
 
Feanor2 said:
The Church does have a poor history- especially in the US- regarding race.
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And that’s more a matter of culture…the human element of the Church draws from the culture it finds itself in. Of course, there have been Black Catholics since the very earliest days…the Ethiopian Eunuch recorded in Scripture being the prime example. There are ancient, medieval, and modern Black Catholic saints. At least three early popes came from Africa…though they weren’t necessarily “black” as they were from Northern Africa.
 
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